Lifetime Fuel Economy: 39.49 mpg

Wednesday, June 11, 2008

A surprise... better than expected!

This run was about 80% highway, more than before(50/50), but about 85% of it was with the air conditioning running, compared with 30% before. I'm very impressed and happy about the 34.5 mpg, but also worried about the large variance between the two "tanks" I've run so far, for the purpose of this experimentation. I knew this car's FE would react to little things easily,though - that's why I bought it. My Mustang never got lower than about 18 mpg when I ran the heck out of it, and never over 21 when I babied it. I think a little more time at factory settings might do me good, but I'm anxious to further my mods. I knew if worse came to worse, I could restart data collection next fall when I have a very regular and dependable commute to and from school, and do weekly trials with each mod separately. That will have to do, because Linda isn't going to let me turn the air off on her now!For now, I'm going to bump tire pressure. I wanted to start hypermiling, but while I'm driving around a very pregnant wife, I don't want to do anything too oddball. The sidewall max on the tires is 35 psi; I'm going to set them at 37 - a nice, even 5 psi above factory settings. I think I'll work on calculating rolling resistance tomorrow.